One thing that confronts a lot of photographers is the inability to capture the kind of depth they see when looking at the scene. You may have heard others proclaim or even thought to yourself, “this image just looks flat and uninteresting.” There are many variables that might influence this disappointment, like the way our […]

In the lowlands of the Pacific Northwest’s late fall and winter it is usually light-starved, wet and 50 shades of gray. Occasionally, though, the sun peeks out and it stops raining long enough for some shooting opportunities of the outdoor nature kind. For example, I found salmon leaping out of the water trying to get […]

“To hand hold or not to hand hold,” that is the question. Throughout the history of photography the tripod has been a blessing and a curse, a love and hate relationship for sure. Most well-traveled photographers know how important the tripod is when you need to maximize depth of field with small apertures or shoot […]

They’re creepy and they’re crawly; they cause more screams and heart palpitations per millimeter of length than just about any other creature; and they make great models for photo shoots as long as they don’t jump onto the photographer (i.e., ME) or crawl into the camera bag. Spiders. Arachnids. Orb weavers. Stalkers. Jumpers. Trappers. Lightning […]

In the dawn of the new age when photography evolved from film to digital capture, some tools we were familiar with were left behind. One of the most important was film choice, as it provided a direct reflection of what we wanted to communicate in color, contrast and sharpness. Photographers now accomplish this either in […]

Like most photographers I prefer my time shooting to that spent behind the computer. Downloading and editing images sucks up precious energy and time so I’m eager to streamline my workflow and shave time wherever possible. One of the best ways to do this is by using keyboard shortcuts. Whenever you find yourself continually repeating […]

With Adobe’s announcement of a “Photographer’s Bundle” for the Creative Cloud subscription, many shutterbugs now have access to both Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC for printing their images. So a fair question is, which one to use? Let’s see how they compare. How They’re Alike Lightroom and Photoshop share many printing features and capabilities. The […]

For most of us, photography is enjoyed on many different levels. First and foremost is the act of taking the picture. This might mean walking around finding interesting subjects or creating scenes from the ground up and photographing them. It can also include the act of touching up your images on the computer. Making them […]

Going Beyond One Picture Last week In Part I of Exploring Your Subject, I introduced the concepts of environmental, intimate and abstract portraits. These approaches are means of exploring your subject so that “no stone is left unturned” in the process of searching for that one expression that communicates how we feel about the subject. […]

I imagine this has happened to you. You see something really exciting, frame it up in the viewfinder, snap the shutter, quickly glance at the back of the camera and then begin to look for other subjects nearby that may evoke the same kind of excitement. When you get back home and review the work […]

My Tamron 90mm 2.8 1:1 Macro Lens has been very, very good to me. I would have been content to use it as my primary macro lens for life because of its sharpness, versatility, lightness and shooting distance. But Tamron upgraded the lens this year and added vibration control (VC) and I took a chance, […]

Once you’ve decided to print your image using either a photo inkjet printer or a printing service, you still have to prepare the file correctly to ensure you get quality results. This involves three steps: Set the resolution. Size the picture. Sharpen the image. If you are sending the picture out to a photo lab […]

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein Right now I am sitting and staring out an airplane window. I find airplanes to be one of my most productive environments. Revelations and insights often flood my consciousness while in flight. Why is this a creative space? One could mention that the potential of a […]

It’s easy to miss them – as I did for years riding my bike fast around the local lake – and easy to dismiss them as they whiz by at breakneck speed. But up close, dragonflies have an amazing array of colors, and set against nature’s greens and yellows and oranges and blues they make […]